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Savoury Souffles

Savory souffles are baked custard-like cakes filled with crayfish, quenelles, or calf's brains.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Savoury Souffles

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Make the batter

  1. Beat the butter to a cream.

  2. Stir in the egg yolks until well mixed.

  3. Add the warm milk and flour, mixing well after each addition.

  4. Beat the egg whites to a froth and gradually fold into the mixture.

Fill and bake

  1. Butter some souffle molds and place a spoonful of the mixture in each.

  2. Add a crayfish, quenelle, or small portion of brain to each mold.

  3. Cover with another spoonful of the mixture and brush the tops.

  4. Bake in a 400°F (200°C) oven until golden and serve hot.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  2. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  3. Butter + crayfishtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together343 recipes

    Shared aroma: anethole (sweet, anise).

  4. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Egg whites
Whipped to a froth, they trap air that lifts the soufflé as it bakes.
Egg yolks
Enrich the batter and help set its structure as it cooks.
Flour
Thickens the base so it holds the whipped air and keeps its shape.
Butter
Adds richness and fat that gives a tender texture and flavour.
Warm milk
Loosens the batter and adds moisture for a smooth base.

The step that matters

Fold the egg whites gently. Folding in the whipped whites carefully keeps the air bubbles intact, which is what makes the soufflé rise. Overmixing deflates the batter and it will bake flat and dense.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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